A Thought from a Pilgrim of Truth

The Logic of “Love is Love

There is an argument for non-traditional expressions of love that posits “Love is Love”.

Philosophically speaking, saying “Love is Love” is pointless, as it is a tautology, a statement that is necessarily true by virtue of its logical form. It’s the same as saying blue is blue or the green grass in green. It only states that a thing is what it is known to be, and therefore gives no defense, nor asserts any disputed fact.

Of course, the point of the saying isn’t to assert a logical argument of X=X, but rather to assert something closer to X and Y are equal. That is to say that the argument is more plainly asserted as “all love is equal”. Yet, here again we find a major flaw in the argument. If one holds that all love is equal, then romantic love and parental love are seen as equal, indeed as being one and the same. So far as I know, no one is making this claim.

Therefore, we must refine the claim yet again to “all romantic love is equal”. However, we have a problem here as well. Certainly no one would say that the love shared in every romantic relationship is of the same quality as every other romantic relationship. In fact, one need only think a short while to see that this is far from the truth and holds no water whatsoever.

It seems to me then that the argument being made is that “all romantic love is equally valid”. But, once again we find a fatal flaw, as there are many types of “romantic love” that would be abhorrent even to those that make the claim “Love is Love”. This can be seen by equating two forms of romantic love, one which they affirm, and one which they condemn. If one were to do this, they would find a vehement denial of kinds, and be rebuffed for making such a comparison, which I am being careful not to do.

Thus, we come to the true meaning of the proclamation “Love is Love”. Essentially one who asserts such an argument is affirming an emotional argument, rather than a strictly logical one. Such a person is saying that they affirm a specific spectrum of romantic love that has enlarged boundaries from what is deemed by a traditional view of romantic love to be valid, but it is still a spectrum with boundaries.

Basically, those who are asserting love is love are only saying that they don’t find any reason why certain romantic relationship configurations shouldn’t be seen as equally as valid as those that are traditionally seen as valid. The trouble is, at least in so far as I’ve ever heard the assertion argued, there is no logical merit to such an argument. Rather, it is an appeal to emotion, which is referred to as the logical fallacy of argumentum ad passiones. It is an appeal to one’s emotions over logical reasoning. Unfortunately, I have witnessed time and again a person has proclaimed “love is love” as though it should resonate with the rational faculties of those to whom they are speaking, rather than their emotions. My point here is simple. Insofar as logic is concerned, love is love is an unhelpful tautology on the one hand or a masquerading emotional logical fallacy one the other. It simply isn’t a sound logical argument.